Cover

Title Page, Copyright Page

Contents

Acknowledgments

I have many people to thank for their support as I wrote this book. In many
ways, this book is a biographical consequence of my time as an undergraduate
student at Samford University, a Baptist university in Birmingham,
Alabama. Beginning in 2009, other students, faculty members, and I worked
together to form an unofficial support group for LGBT students and promote
LGBT inclusion in a conservative religious environment. I would not
be where I am today if it were not for Hugh Floyd and Theresa Davidson,
two faculty members in Samford’s Department of Sociology, who showed...

Introduction

What do an anarchist, a former fundamentalist Christian, and a relatively
apolitical and nonreligious student have in common? Conventional explanations
of activist group participation, and perhaps human sociality more
generally, would suggest very little. Common sense might suggest that these
three people would occupy dif­ferent social spheres and advocate for dif­ferent
causes—if they advocated for certain causes at all. But in a fledgling lesbian,
gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) organization at the Catholic...

Chapter One:
The Context of Change

LGBT activists at Christian colleges and universities do not mobilize in a
vacuum. Although they followed a variety of paths into LGBT activist
groups, the students whom I profile in this book all mobilized at a similar
historical moment and amidst common sets of structural conditions that
made LGBT activism at Christian colleges and universities possible.
In this chapter, I examine the question of why LGBT activist groups began
to emerge on Christian college and university campuses at least since...

Chapter Two:
Joining an Activist Group

Why and how do people join activist groups? Traditional accounts of activist
group participation emphasize a relatively smooth transition between
activists’ childhood to their coming-of-age, as well as a close link between
the current attitudes of activists and the stated beliefs of the activist groups
they join. My initial visit to Belmont University in 2010, where I observed
protests in favor of an inclusive nondiscrimination statement and talked to
members of the then unofficial Bridge Builders group, seemed to confirm...

Chapter Three:
Committing to the Cause

Why do students commit to activist groups? In other words, why do some
students devote so much more time and energy to activist groups than others
do? Whereas the previous chapter focused on the factors shaping students’
initial decisions to join activist groups, and whereas the next chapters will
focus on the impacts of LGBT activist groups on their campuses and their
participants, this chapter focuses on what happens between those beginning
and later points—the process by which students decide to take on...

Chapter Four:
Creating Change

Katie, a student at Belmont University, was a member of Bridge Builders
during the time it organized protests against the school’s discriminatory policies
toward LGBT people. As a core member of the organization, she had
deep insight into the group’s strategies and tactics, and as she told me about
the group’s approach to the protests, she repeatedly emphasized the group’s
messaging to Christians: “I knew going into these protests [in 2010] that we
weren’t likely to change many minds overnight. We didn’t necessarily...

Chapter Five:
Becoming an Activist

Participants in LGBT activist groups come from a variety of backgrounds—
some from highly politicized households, others from more conservative,
religious families, and still others from relatively apolitical
upbringings. Nevertheless, nearly all participants in LGBT activist groups
share a remarkable willingness to accept risk, to reexamine old values and
beliefs, and to face potential backlash from their families, friends, and universities.
Given the remarkable journeys many of these participants take...

Conclusion

Growing up, Damon did not consider himself to be an activist. Having been
raised in a traditional Catholic household, and having attended a Catholic
high school, Damon had never been involved in an LGBT group, and he
had certainly never participated in any protests. He attended Loyola University
Chicago in part because of the allure of a big city and in part because
of the school’s Catholic identity, but he never stepped foot on the campus
before he moved there, and he knew very little about the campus climate...

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